33. Georgia

THIRTY-THREE

Georgia

It’s a different madness, this second time seeing Oliver’s family. When we walk in, I’m still passed around in a steady stream of hugs and cheek kisses, but Oliver’s immediate family is more subdued tonight. Tight squeezes and huge grins, rather than verbal assaults and gymnastics.

They don’t leave me alone, though. They’re always there, a silent yet steady presence, and I see where Oliver gets that side of him from. Plates of food are still thrust into my hand, and there is contact, so much physical contact. Ben and Jill wrap me in enormous hugs. Paloma or Maya or sometimes both, are always in my lap, or draped against my back, playing with my hair. I always find Gloria, Izzy, Tala seated close to me on a couch, the sides of our thighs pressed together, one of them squeezing my hand. Oliver is a permanent smiling sentry somewhere nearby.

It’s perfect. It’s what I need, and I wonder how they know.

The White Elephant gift exchange begins after dinner, and the room buzzes with the chaotic energy of fifty people, all vying for the most coveted presents. Laughter and shouting fills the air as gifts are unwrapped and promptly stolen, each swap met with groans and cheers. The pile of gifts in the center of the room dwindles quickly, replaced by a growing collection of bizarre and hilarious items that have already changed hands multiple times. A brightly colored toilet seat cover, a can of Spam, a hideous Christmas sweater with blinking lights, and an inexplicably large jar of kimchi are among the hotly contested treasures, each swap ratcheting up the excitement.

People strategize and plot, whispering to their neighbors and eyeing the remaining unopened gifts. One tito in a Santa hat cackles as he nabs a giant inflatable unicorn from an unsuspecting teenager, only to have it swiped moments later by his own mother. Meanwhile, a hot (though not as hot as Oliver) tattooed cousin triumphantly clutches a pair of fuzzy llama slippers, only to have them whisked away by his three-year-old daughter, whose tiny feet most certainly won’t fit in them for several more years. The room is a whirlwind of movement and merriment, until finally, the last gift, an air fryer, is stolen, and the game is over.

Oliver and I stand in a side room to exchange our own presents. He gives me three. I unwrap the first, and it’s a neon pink planner slash journal, decorated on the front with a glitter unicorn, fit for a twelve-year-old, or for me. The second is a fresh pack of shimmer gel pens to write with. The last is a giant sticker pad, filled with romance book related holographic stickers.

“Get organized with pizazz,” he tells me, and I squeal and give him a huge smack on the lips.

He opens mine, and it’s a portable, cube-like label maker, one that fits in the palm of your hand. It connects via Bluetooth to a phone, allowing you to log onto its app and design labels using a massive library of fonts, templates, and symbols. You send your label to the cube, and voila, it prints. He looks at the contraption with so much awe and love and disbelief that I need to snap him out of it.

“This is… the greatest Christmas gift I’ve ever received in my entire life,” he tells me, with what may be a tear in his eye.

I watch as Oliver’s cousins and titas belt out impressive (like, shockingly so) renditions of Whitney Houston on the plastic, light up microphone connected wirelessly to the television, where lyrics scroll in a constant stream.

“What’s with all the karaoke?” I ask Tala, who is currently squished against my right side on the couch.

She looks at me incredulously. “I told you. It’s like the national sport of the Philippines.”

“I thought it was line dancing,” I answer.

“Both,” she replies nonchalantly.

I just about die when Oliver takes the microphone. The first few notes of a familiar Christmas song plays.

“I… don’t want a lot for Christmas…. There is just one thing I need…” he sings into the microphone, looking directly at me, eyes shining and sparkling, confident and proud yet extremely off key.

The crowd goes wild. No, the crowd goes apeshit, a room full of over fifty people crammed onto couches and armchairs, seated all over the floor, clapping their hands and screaming. I’m laughing so hard I’m crying, and his beautiful voice is soon drowned out by his relatives singing along.

I’m energized, and something in my body releases, a burst of joy and glee and maybe love. I jump up from the couch and run up to join Oliver, but not before someone thrusts a second microphone into my hand. Laughing, I join him in a horribly harmonized version of the refrain.

“All I want for Christmas is you…” and all I see is the crinkles in the corners of his golden eyes and his crooked front to oth as he grins down at me. He lifts me in the air in a big bear hug and gives me a giant peck on the lips as his family cheers around us, but nothing exists in this moment except for us.

When we get home ( home is what I’ve started calling Oliver’s apartment), we don’t devour each other as is typical when we walk through the front door. Instead, we stand side by side in the mirror of his bathroom, brushing our teeth and washing our faces. I steal some of his moisturizer, a Korean brand that does wonders for my skin. He diligently wipes down all the water splatter off the bathroom counter after we finish. I take off all my clothes before crawling into bed, while he goes into the kitchen to get each of us our bedside glass of water.

He turns out the lights and climbs into bed, groaning when he finds me naked under the covers. He takes his time mapping my body slowly, tenderly, reverently. He plants soft kisses all over my breasts, my stomach, making his way down my body until he throws both my legs over his shoulders, moaning when he sees, when he tastes how wet I am. He worships every inch, every crevice, spreading me and licking in and around until my legs are shaking around his ears.

He holds my eyes as he pushes into me, back and forth in small increments, mapping my entire face as he makes sure I adjust to his girth. When he is finally seated to the hilt, he stays there, unmoving, gently collaring my neck with his hand and kissing my eyes, the tip of my nose, my mouth. Our kiss deepens, mouths opening and tongues tangling, and then finally he moves, long pulls and pushes that I feel deep within.

“Georgia,” is all he whispers, and it’s a prayer coming from his lips. I feel worshipped. I trace the contours of his strong shoulders, his biceps, down his ropy forearms to his hands as he steadily moves inside me.

He takes both my hands in his and lifts them above my head, restraining them. He lifts up on his knees, tilts my hips up, and there, there is the spot. He takes a hand to circle my clit, still restraining my hands with one of his, while a familiar pressure builds in my core.

I gasp, and it’s a slow build-up and even slower release, a rolling force of warmth instead of a massive explosion, one that I feel in every inch of my body. I feel my small muscles contracting around his length, and he groans, thrusts harder and more erratic until I feel him spill inside me.

He keeps moving, even after he’s finished, still hard, the slickness of his release providing an incredible friction. He rubs tight, quick circles around my clit, and this last orgasm is a surprise, a sharp explosion behind my eyes. I cry into his neck as he whispers in my ear.

“Gorgeous”, “you’re beautiful”, “you are perfect”.

Ten minutes later, he asks me how it was.

“Five out of five, obviously,” I joke, deflecting and still reeling from the sheer emotion of earlier.

He twists my nipple. “Not that. Christmas Eve with my family. How are you feeling? You didn’t seem okay earlier.”

I groan. He’s always making me grapple with things. “It was… actually really nice, Oliver. You… I wasn’t okay earlier. But you knew exactly what to do. And then it was great.”

He kisses me. “Was my family too much like you were worried about?”

“No, they were perfect. How did they know?”

He tenses.

I eye him. “Oliver?”

“I texted them,” he admits with a whoosh. “I told them to lay off, that Christmas was a tough time for you because of your parents.”

I roll that around, playing with it. I find I’m okay with it, and it was the perfect thing to do.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “If that wasn’t okay. I did the fixing thing again.”

I do a different Oliver thing, where I look deep into his eyes and force him to do the same. They are oddly bright in the dim glow of the streetlights outside his window. “ Thank you,” I say, instead of I love you .

He might catch the underlying declaration in that, though, because the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen in my whole fucking life still breaks through his face. “You’re welcome, Chaos.”

Feeling whole, shiny, and brand new, I’m more than happy to go to his parents for a small Christmas get-together.

Nothing fancy, just a million pounds of leftovers from the night before, watching old Christmas movies and snacking periodically (read: Gloria force feeding us) throughout the day. I fully cuddle in his lap on the couch, his arms wrapped around me, as he drops periodic kisses into my hair, and no one minds or cares, especially the two of us.

The next day, we go to the grocery store in the next neighborhood over, because we still can’t be seen in Fort Greene together, and because we will need to sustain ourselves for the rest of winter break, because we will obviously spend every day of it together in his apartment.

I get distracted and wander over to the candy section, poking through the multicolored packages. I think about how wonderful it is to be an adult and to be able to buy and eat all the candy I ever want whenever I want. Eventually, Oliver wanders over with the shopping cart.

I look inside, horrified by what I find.

“What?” he demands to know.

My top lip curls in disgust as I look up at him.

“What?!” he half-shouts.

“There are like, seven different types of fruit in here?!” I yell, appalled. “Vegetables? Is this kale?! Organic chicken breast? Quinoa? Whole grain bread?! Is this…” I whisper, lifting a box, “…bran cereal?!”

His gorgeous face shows extreme irritation. “Well, excuse me for wanting to eat a vegetable once in a while.”

“I will hate you if you force me to eat all of this,” I growl at him.

He throws his hands up in the air. “We can’t just live off of ice cream this week, Georgia!”

I move down the candy aisle, picking up bags and boxes at random and throwing them backwards into the cart.

I march to the ice cream aisle and select no less than six cartons of ice cream, with Oliver grumbling behind me.

I throw in a bag of Takis (Fuego) in for good measure.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Can’t we at least get Blue?”

“Don’t be such a lunatic,” I snap.

Other than this highly romantic incident, we spend every single day of winter break together in domestic bliss, giddy, borderline disgusting in what feels like a newfound love and affection.

He wants to watch a documentary, but I want to watch another horror movie.

We compromise on The Blair Witch Project, because I convince him it’s a documentary by three student filmmakers about a strange woman who lives in the woods in Maryland.

“I hate you,” Oliver tells me an hour later, while standing far across the room, completely out of the line of sight of the television.

“Shhh…” I tell him from under a blanket. “This is supposed to be the best part. ”

He teaches me how to cook. Well, he prints out a chart of the safe minimum internal temperatures for various meats. He shows me where to stick the thermometer, and it’s not just on the surface of the meat.

He lets me make a mess of his kitchen while we bake something called canelés. He happily cleans up after me.

I love him, and he’s passing the test.